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Nick Walker reviews A Fly Fisherman's Blue Ridge (1990) by Christopher Camuto In between reading corporate finance and financial accounting textbooks for school, I actually had time to get through one book this past fall that was read purely for my own personal enjoyment. I have read this book three times now, and only after my last go at it did I truly grasp what a phenomenal piece of writing A Fly Fisherman's Blue Ridge really is. The reason it took me three tries before I could finally and fully relate to this book is that before the third try I had never set foot anywhere near the Blue Ridge Mountains. I had no idea at the time, but reading a book about fishing in the Blue Ridge without having ever been to the Blue Ridge was like reading a book on how to fly cast without ever having seen a fly rod. Something was missing. I still enjoyed Camuto's unique and beautiful prose, but I was trying to envision a place I had never seen before, and somehow the messages in the text were lost in translation as I tried my best to immerse myself in a world as foreign to me as any. But by the third reading, I had a full season of fly fishing in the Blue Ridge under my belt, and the places and emotions that Camuto describes so eloquently in this book were suddenly jumping off the page at me, as vivid and real as a flower blossom in March, back dropped against a steel gray sky. Although it was my own experience of fishing in the Blue Ridge that really allowed me to connect on the deepest level with this book, I do not mean to imply that someone who has never been to the Blue Ridge will not thoroughly enjoy Camuto's writing. In fact, it is quite the contrary. A Fly Fisherman's Blue Ridge is a very rich book. It is almost as if every sentence Camuto writes is a poem in itself. For example here is a sentence I just now randomly plucked off page 67: “By chance, my first trip to North Carolina was shrouded in minor, visual illusions that gave the fishing a dreamlike cast, dampened as it was by a constant rain and enclosed in shifting mists.” You will find sentence after sentence of similar elegance in every single paragraph and on every single page of this book. It might seem that every letter used by Camuto is painstakingly selected with the goal of conveying the clearest, most vivid image as possible, but I believe this style of writing comes very naturally to the author. His writing flows as cleanly and purposefully as the Rapidan River in spring. Camuto is certainly one of the best at adding that extra element that allows the reader to really become immersed in his writing. As you read, you will feel the water on your legs and the wind on your face. You will hear the chickadees singing, and you will see the dark red leaves, which have been coaxed loose from the branches of the oak by the impending winter, coming to rest gently on the slick black surface of the North Fork of the Moormans River . It is without doubt that Camuto is passionate about the natural world. He is clearly a man to whom trout are often a reason to be surrounded by nature, rather than the object of his attention. I know that most fishermen can relate. I have fished through fishless days that I could not have been happier about, realizing at day's end that I was much better off than I would have been had I not been fishing, and this is a major underlying theme of Camuto's book. He writes so effectively of the things other than fish that make a day spent fishing special. Sometimes the reader might even forget he is reading a book about fishing! But do not fret if you are one who needs a little action to keep them interested. There are several amazing scenes in which Camuto battles large fish, sometimes getting the better of these monster trout and sometimes not. And for all the science buffs out there he dedicates a good chunk of his book to the subject of acid rain, a topic every fisherman should be educated on. Camuto argues tirelessly for the protection of our natural resources, realizing fully that the interests of trout and man are too often conflicting, and as members of TU we should all be able to relate to Camuto's campaign of resource protection. If the name Christopher Camuto sounds familiar to you it is because chances are good you have read one or two of his pieces before. Mr. Camuto writes regularly for TROUT, our favorite periodical about none other than, well, trout, and of course all the latest having to do with TU. If you have not read it yet, I strongly suggest you read his last piece about fishing for sea run brook trout in Maine . This 750-word essay is a real gem, as are all the pieces Mr. Camuto has done for TROUT . Finally, I would like to formally give A Fly Fisherman's Blue Ridge an official recommendation. I think anyone that has ever wet a fly line will enjoy reading this book, but be careful to not speed read through this one. -- NW Statistics About This Book Title: A Fly Fisherman's Blue Ridge Author: Christopher Camuto Pages: 238 ISBN: 0820323047 Year Published: 1990 Other Notes: Available in hardcover and paperback Click here to go back to Book Reviews.